• If all the runs were earned, the pitcher had a 445.5 ERA for the game. But that's assuming that Japanese high school games go nine innings. Since several runs were most likely unearned, and assuming that Japanese high school baseball games typically go seven innings as they do in much of the U.S., the ERA was probably more like 324.0. That'll make it much easier to whittle it down to under 200.0 in his next start.

• Kawamoto Technical High School gave up 26 runs in the first and 40 runs in the second, when the game was called with only one out. This eclipses the record of 54 runs over three innings set by the Gashouse Gorillas vs. the Teatotallers at the Polo Grounds in 1946.

• No freaking relief pitchers in Japan?

• I'm wondering who made that one out in the second inning for the winning squad, Shunshukan High. Wouldn't it be funny if it was a strikeout? That guy would experience more enduring shame than anyone on the losing team.

The Japanese Don't Believe In Tommy John Surgery [Deadspin]
Bugs Bunny, Greatest Banned Player Ever [U.S.S. Mariner]

It did fall short, of course, of the all-time professional record, when the Teatotallers beat the Gashouse Gorillas 55-54 in Baseball Bugs in 1946.

My favorite part, I think, is that the Orioles actually had a 3-0 lead at one point. Also, it was only the first game of a doubleheader ... the Rangers winning the nightcap 9-7. Brad Wilkerson, the only Ranger who played and did not have a hit in the two games, drove home the go-ahead run in Game 2 with a sacrifice fly in the eighth. The 39 runs established an AL record for most runs in a single day, in which the Rangers had 40 hits and 13 walks in 92 official at-bats. Ian Kinsler had 13 at-bats, and Texas rookie David Murphy had six hits. Another Rangers rookie, Travis Metcalf, had eight RBI. So can one game serve as a definitive indictment of the way an franchise is run, and be the cause for a wholesale overhaul? How can Peter Angelos, in the indecent scoreboard glare of a result 110 years in the making, not be totally panicking right now? Should the Orioles simply pack up and leave, and Camden Yards be plowed under and the earth salted as Rome did with Carthage? I'm thinking this is something that you just don't simply shake off, but I could be wrong.

• It's Hard To Pass Two Teams. Meanwhile, Albert Pujols did his own special thing with the number 30, homering for a career-best fifth consecutive game to become the first player in major league history to hit 30 homers in his first seven seasons. St. Louis beat the Marlins 6-4, keeping pace with first-place Chicago, three games back. The Cardinals are two games behind Milwaukee.

• We Never Thought He'd Sink To This. Derek Lowe went seven innings and Matt Kemp had a career-high four hits to lead the Dodgers over the injury-riddled-remains-of-what-formerly-were-the-Phillies, 15-3.

• Break Up The D-Rays. Hey, what gives? The Devil Rays beat the Red Sox for only the second time this season, B.J. Upton hitting a two-run homer off of Daisuke Matsuzaka as Tampa prevailed 2-1. New York, 8-2 winners over the Angels. are five games back in the East.

• 1860s: Changeup and curveball emerge in the pre-'major league' days. (Candy Cummings is most often credited with developing the curve.)
• 1881: Pitching distance grows to 50 feet.
• 1920: Spitball banned, although 17 certified practitioners are allowed to use it for the rest of their careers.
• 1970s: Split-finger fastball emerges. (Cubs minor league pitching instructor Fred Martin teaches the pitch to Bruce Sutter.)
• 1980s: The term cut fastball is added to the game's lexicon, but experts contend that the pitch has been thrown for a long (although unspecified) time.
• 2007: Gyroball.

But here are some key innovations that The Sporting News missed:

• 1934: Bingo Long develops the eephus pitch.

• 1946: Bugs Bunny unveils his "powerful, paralyzing, perfect pachydermous percussion pitch" for the Tea Totalers in a game at the Polo Grounds against the Gas-House Gorrilas.

• 1970: Little Leaguer strikes out Superman with gas-filled baseball.

• 1976: Yankees pitcher Joey Turner introduces the "held ball," in which he stands on the mound and refuses to throw a pitch while Chico's Bail Bonds players circle the bases.

• 1993: Chicago Cubs pitcher Henry Rowengartner, 12, becomes the youngest player to throw a 100 MPH pitch in a Major League game. (Filmed in Oak Park, Ill.!).

• 2006: Jose Canseco throws many pitches never before seen by humans.

The Evolution Of Pitches [The Sporting News]
Canseco Pitching Debut Goes As You Probably Imagined It Would [Deadspin]